Club Bastard was an explosion of thrashing groovesters, contained within a barnlike building in the middle of a party floor. You couldn’t have gotten anyone else into the club without first compressing them to the size of a pea, and I suspect that when I pushed my way into the club someone must have been popped out of a window the other side. Music crunched out of massive speakers along every wall, competing with the cacophony of five hundred people all shouting at once. The music was Predictive Trance, the notes and words all fresh-minted in real time by a bank of computers on the far wall. The algorithms used for generating the lyrics are keyed to the effect of various recreational drugs, and thus the more out of it you get, the better you become at predicting what the words will be.
I shouldered my way through to the bar, buffeted on every side by bright young things. The line at the counter wasn’t very deep, probably because everyone in the place was bombed on happy drugs. Dying tendrils of the Rapt I’d taken were sparkling periodically in parts of my brain, and being surrounded by glittering eyes and expensive highs was not what I needed. I was grimly conscious of the fact that what I did need was more Rapt, and that I shouldn’t allow myself to have it. I was also still shouldering thoughts of the spares away as hard as I could. I knew I had to find them soon. Nothing had changed—including the fact that I didn’t know where to start looking. I wasn’t in a great state, to be honest, and had no high hopes of ever feeling better.
The gorilla behind the bar stared at me impassively when I got there, waiting for me to speak.
“Is Johnny in?” I asked, trying to look tough.
“Who wants to know?” the man said. He was trying even harder than me and succeeded only in looking like two types of shit in a one-shit waistcoat.
“I do, obviously, you stupid fuck,” I said, not impressed. “Or I wouldn’t have asked. Is he in or not?”
Huge hands closed around my arms. A Vinaldi goon stood on either side of me, two jabs in my back making it clear they were armed as well. The barman grinned.
“He’s expecting you,” he said.
The two goons steered me through the crowd toward a glass wall on the other side of the club. The glass was chroma-keyed to reflect only flesh tones, creating a shifting mirage of disembodied arms and heads. As we approached, a door opened to one side making it clear that the wall was one-way glass. I was bundled unceremoniously through the doorway and into the space behind.
Up a short flight of steps and into a large room, stretching the length of the wall. Sofas, bookcases, full AV rig; points of red and green LED’s in the semidarkness. Jaz Garcia stepped out of the gloom, gripped me by the throat, and pulled me forward.
“Careful,” said a voice. “I want to hear his explanation before I let you remodel salient features of his body. Though trust me, that will be an upcoming presentation.”
Garcia punched me solidly in the face, to promote cooperation and let me know the score. Then his other hand loosened barely perceptibly as he swung me round and let go. I was thrown accurately into a large chair facing the glass wall, and I had to admire his technique.
I knew what was going to happen. Maybe Nearly would look after Suej. Beyond the one-way mirror I could see all the happy youngsters below, dancing for their lives. Have fun, I thought to them. Shout those lyrics. You won’t even hear the gunshot when it comes.
Another man thrust his hands into my jacket and came out with my gun, which he placed carefully on a table. Then he waved some kind of detector over me. Nothing bleeped, and the man stepped back out of sight. Garcia had disappeared to stand behind me, and the scene was almost set. I heard a chair being scraped along the floor in front of me, and then set down, back toward me.
Vinaldi sat himself down in it, arms folded over the back of the chair. I wondered if guys like him had to go to some orientation class when they started out, to make sure they got things like that just right. I made a mental note to ask Dath in the unlikely event of my ever seeing him again.
He didn’t say anything for a while, so I started the ball rolling. “You wanted to see me,” I said, striving for a tone of friendly interest.
Johnny didn’t say anything again, or rather continued not to say anything. He kept that up for long enough that my remark disappeared as if I’d never made it. This was obviously to be his show, and his alone. I decided to just wait and let him have it his way.
“Randall,” he said eventually, “you ought to be congratulated. There should be statues to you. You are truly a very stupid man.”
“I try,” I said, and Garcia struck me across the back of the head with a gun. It hurt like fuck.
Vinaldi smiled thinly. “What made you think you could do this?”
“Do what?” I said, blinking my eyes against the pain in my head. “Tell me, Johnny, what is it you think I’m doing?”
“In a way it is reassuring that all my problems come down to you. It is reassuring to me because I thought I had some kind of miniseries-sized revolt on my hands, and now I find all I have is some stupid ex-cop with a death wish. I see you’re fucked up again, which is no surprise to me. Your life is no use to you, is your problem, and tonight Jaz will put you out of your misery.”
I stared back at him then, something beginning to strike me as wrong with this picture. Partly it was what Vinaldi was saying, mainly the atmosphere around me. Grimly celebratory. These guys thought they were putting an end to something here. I didn’t know what that might be.
“What are you talking about?” I asked Vinaldi, genuinely interested. “I haven’t even started trying to take you down. When I do, you’ll know about it and you won’t have time for this kind of conversation. You’ll be too busy digging bullets out of your face.”
I was expecting another blow from behind, but it still surprised me with its force. My head was thrown forward and I resolved to pace myself a little better. Two more like that and I’d be out, and I hadn’t been really rude yet.
“Five of my closest associates have been killed,” Vinaldi said. “And you’re trying to tell me you’ve got nothing to do with it?”
I stared at him for real, then. “Nothing at all,” I said, genuinely astounded.
Vinaldi laughed humorlessly. “Jaz said you’d say that. Me, I thought you’d have the sense to realize the position you’re in and tell the truth, but Jaz, he says you’re stupider than that.”
“Jaz would know,” I said. “He’s the yardstick, after all.”
Another crunch from behind, and this time a firework of stars went off above my right eye. So much for pacing myself. I shook my head and glanced through the glass wall for a moment, trying to refocus on something. It took a while. The crowds outside were still dancing, though there seemed to be some sort of confrontation happening far off at the main door.
I tried to reorient myself around what was going on. It seemed to come down to this: Vinaldi thought I was the guy who was whacking his associates. He had to be fucking crazy.
“You’ve got to be fucking crazy,” I said. “You think I’m going round clipping your friends?”
“I know you are.”
“As you keep pointing out, I’m not a cop anymore. I’ve got no problem with your associates. My only problem is with you.”
“So you try to take me down from the outside. Slow death. I frankly admire the ambition.”
“So do I, but it isn’t me. I wasn’t even in town when the first guys were killed,” I said.
Vinaldi smiled, with real humor this time. “You think I’m going to believe a word you say?”
“You’d better, because it’s true. And if it isn’t me trying to take you down, then it must be someone else.”